Scottish Tories "for nothing if you don't have freedom"*

What now for the Scottish Tories?

Yesterday they David McLetchie took a stance which flew in the face of common sense or fairness, when they opposed the right for a suspect to have a lawyer present for the first six hours while the police were able to question. The Tories are probably opposing the ruling solely on the grounds that it comes from a decision taken in the European Court for Human Rights in 2008. The fact that there are some sensible decisions taken in Europe seems to be a point that deludes them. Hopefully the Scottish people will remember how inhuman the Scottish Tories are on the subjects of rights for the citizens next May.

The preamble to the Liberal Democrats constitution says that "no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity" and the presence of the six hour rule could well have let to some innocents being imprisoned due to these. So I suspect that this ruling may cause ructions in Westminster with the Tories trying to limit or remove the European Convention on Human Rights from UK law and the rulings of the European Court, even where they are beneficial, being countermanded. Also unlike the Tories the Liberal Democrats believe "our responsibility for justice and liberty cannot be confined by national boundaries"[from the preamble]

I trust that the Lib Dems in Westminster, having secured our Freedom Bill in the coalition agreement will remember that the party exists "to build and safeguard a fair, free and open society, in which we seek to balance the fundamental values of liberty, equality and community"[from the preamble].

The Scottish Tories may moan "but they'll never take OUR FREEDOM"**.

Or else we'll set the Comptroller of HM Household (pictured) on them.

* Yeah a little bit of Braveheart in the title.
** And a little bit more Braveheart at the end.

Former Tory Candidate Teacher Keeps Job After Homophobic Comment

Back in April, when it was too late to replace him, the Conservative candidate for North Ayrshire and Arran, Philip Lardner was deselected by the party for anti-gay comment made on his campaign website. As you may recall I was rather busy at the time fighting that election so didn't blog about it, but I refer you to Andrew Reeves for the story.

At the same time the Primary School teacher at Rashielea Primary School in Renfrewshire was also suspended from work pending a disciplinary hearing. That hearing has been held this week with the result that a teacher who thinks homosexuality is "not normal" or to be "encouraged" in children is to keep his job.

One has to wonder what he would do it a child came to him because of homosexual bullying at school? Or what he would do if I child who was gay objected to his assertions in a classroom? It is not a matter of encouraging but a matter of supporting those who are vulnerable. You cannot encourage someone to be gay, however you can ensure them that there is nothing wrong with it and support them when others feel that there is.

Homophobic bullying does go on at Primary level so you have to wonder how Mr Lardner would handle it in his classroom. As a supporter of Section 28 he fails to acknowledge the amount of harm that was done to homosexual young people by the exclusion of giving them sexual health advise that was relevant to them. He clearly needs some education on the issue himself if he thinks that the aim is encouraging people to be gay rather than simply to be themselves.

Is Iain Dale Hinting At Cameron's "Fairness"?

Of course you probably wouldn't be a Lib Dem blogger, or a regular reader of Lib Dem blogs and escaped the news of David Cameron's love bomb New Year Message.

We there is an interesting possible proviso of what may lie ahead in Iain Dale's blog. In his ten predictions for 2010 he predicts that:

"VAT will go up to 20% at some point this year"

Now that is an interesting statement for someone who has recently looked at becoming a Conservative candidate. There are only three possible occasions that VAT could be raised next year, after it goes up on January 1st that is.

The first would be in the budget. The second would be if an incoming Conservative Chancellor wants to radically change things just after a splash and dash budget into General Election failure by Labour. The third would be in the Autumn Pre-Budget Report as Darling did last month.

So does this mean that the Tories are planning to lift the level of the regressive* VAT to 20%. Cameron is talking about fairness. The Lib Dems are promising to lift the income tax threshold closer to the level of the national minimum wage than any of the other main parties is prepared to go. The Lib Dems also recognise that VAT hurts most those on the lowest incomes. The raise in VAT would be vintage conservatism. Its very nature of being the same on all goods means that their wealthy donors don't feel that they are being hard done by.

But historically look at who has made the increases in VAT.

In Geoffrey Howe's first budget for Margaret Thatcher in 1979 the Tories almost doubled the standard rate from 8% to 15%, even the higher rate before then was only 12.5%. The only other Chancellor to take VAT to new heights was John Major in his 1991 budget taking it the 17.5% level. The Major increase was to help fund for a cut in that other regressive tax the Poll Tax, robbing Peter to pay Paul. Darling's cut in 2008 was only a temporary measure one which he felt would act as a stimulus.

Cameron as I said yesterday likes to think that we are more in common, but I don't think there is anything in common about how to raise the Government's finances in a fair way, which is kind of a major issue.

Embarrassing Update: No sooner do I post about the difference's between Lib Dems and Conservative than Sara Bedford points out one of our MP is following in an Anatidae nature.



* Yeah that was even my initial reaction as I live blogged the pre-budget report.

Tories Reject GARL

The Confederation of British Industry (CBI) are once again not best pleased with the Scottish Tories (or the SNP for that matter). They have decided to side with the SNP in not reinstating the £170m funding for the Glasgow Airport Rail Link back into the 2010-11 budget at the Finance Committee in Holyrood yesterday.

The CBI have in recent weeks been attacking the SNPs budget proposals as not being in the best interests of encouraging much needed growth in the Scottish economy and the decision of the Tories on the Committee to side with the SNP on this issue raise their hackles further. The rail link would have provided 1,300 jobs been a boost to Scotland's second cities business sector and was also an integral part of the 2014 Commonwealth Games plans.

Iain McMillan the Scottish director of the CBI said:

"We always knew the Scottish Tories would be the swing vote on the question of whether GARL should be reinstated.

"We are very, very disappointed the Conservatives did not see fit in the committee to vote with Labour.

"We are very disappointed that the Scottish Tory party does not appear to share our view that the Scottish Government should root out waste in these austere times in order to release money to allow strategic transport projects like GARL to go ahead."

So the Tories are like the SNP unable to finding achievable savings to stimulate the economy and pay for much needed projects. Instead they are content with a while range of measures in the budget that are not an effective use of the money that Holyrood has to spend, with £9m of funding estimated to see through the Referendum Bill to a vote in the Parliament, we have an SNP Government, backed implicitly by the Tories, arguing for Labour in Westminster to make cost savings so as not to cut money available to Scotland, while at the same time they are not prepared to prioritise their own funding issues.

It looks like next months budget round could again be a sticky time for the SNP.

Metro Lays into Gordon....no Cameron.....BOTH!?!

Splashed across the copy of the Metro I've just picked up for free on my bus is the headline:

'Workhouses' for teenage mothers

I'd hoped that this headline was going to be seen on every bus and train across the country but the Metro site indicates that the story is carrying the more conciliatory headline 'Gordon Brown Accuses Tories of having no hearts'.

After the headline sentence in my copy of the Metro it goes straight on to lash even further in to the 50,000 family ASBOs that Brown promised yesterday.

'What is the news in that?' you may ask. The Scottish Metro goes out into the Labour heartland of Glasgow and the central belt. So I'm wondering if the two different Metro headlines are being aimed differently at Labour and Tory territory? If so does this imply some sort of unspoken, burgeoning support for the Lib Dems from the nation's biggest circulating free newspaper?